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Man Fined $2,000 For Not Watering Bees
By
John Del Signore
Published Jul 15, 2011
Modified Jul 15, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jul 15, 2011
Modified Jul 15, 2011
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CBS 2's "political correspondent" Marcia Kramer isn't resting on her laurels after blowing the terrorist bike lane story wide open; this week we find her in Douglaston, Queens, where she finds a guy who was fined $2,000 for not watering his bees. To put this in perspective, that's $1,500 more than an unlicensed driver was fined this week for fatally running over a woman on the Upper East Side. For Kramer, it's the perfect opportunity to make some "bee-autiful" puns.
Douglaston's Tip Sempliner tells Kramer a city inspector issued the fine despite the presence of a bee watering station just two feet from the bee hive. “I felt sorry for the inspector," he tells Kramer. "I thought we should probably buy him some glasses." Queens Councilman Daniel Halloran is standing up for his constituent, telling CBS 2, "This is another example of the city going out of its way to collect revenue at the expense of our citizens. There are criminals who get cases in city criminal court who don’t have a $500 fine, let alone a $2,000."
But when the dauntless Kramer started asking City Hall about the fine, they decided to make it disappear! A mayoral spokesman reportedly told her that the fine was waived because officials "thought it through." But this isn't the first stupid ticketing incident involving animals in Queens; remember that time in 2008 when a lonely 65-year-old man was fined $500 for feeding pigeons in his backyard? The way the city badgers and pigeonholes animal lovers is simply un-bee-lievable, eh?
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douglaston
fine
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marcia kramer
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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